Currently, the common method of wound treatment is to cover the wound with a wound dressing. The wound dressing is manufactured as a precut sheet of multi-layer material of various shapes and sizes. The wound dressing is applied to cover the wound and a portion of the surrounding healthy skin. Sometimes the wound dressing is cut to reduce the size and to better fit the wound size and shape. This reduces the amount of healthy skin covered by the dressing.
A typical wound commonly has two or more regions or areas, including necrotic, sloughy, bacteria colonized, granulating, epitheliazing, bleeding, exudating, and drying. An exemplary wound 10 has a granulating area 12 having heavy exudates and an epitheliazing area 14 having low exudates, which are surrounded by healthy skin tissue 16 (see FIG. 1). The wound 10 and its areas 12, 14 are usually of irregular shapes. The areas 12 and 14 of the wound 10 typically differ from each other by healing stage, depth, contamination, infection, and tissue stress due to patient body movement. Consequently, covering the whole wound area and surrounding healthy skin with the same dressing type may create adverse conditions for certain areas of the wound or the surrounding skin, which may increase the healing time or even cause adverse effects such as secondary dermatitis.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a method for wound care that provides the optimal conditions for wound healing by matching the size, shape, and material properties of a wound dressing to the wound area. There is a further need for a system to produce such a wound dressing.